14th - 16th May
We’re staying at a place called Debbie’s Place. It had an excellent rating on Booking.com and was in our budget so it was an easy choice! As soon as we came in we met Debbie and her little dog, who wears a nappy, and she was so friendly! She made us feel right at home. She walked us to our room and told us we got a bit of an upgrade.... We walked in and had a 3 bedroom place and a huge lounge! At first we thought we were sharing the place or something because our bedroom was a Kingsize room which was already an upgrade, but we noticed the bedroom door didn’t have a lock so we asked Debbie about it and it was all ours! Crazy!
The first evening in Rainbow Beach wasn’t what we expected. It was absolutely pouring, I haven’t seen this much rain the whole time we were in Australia, it sounded like you’re standing under a shower! We stayed in that evening and had a bit of a rest before our Fraser Island day trip!
We booked a nature tour of Fraser Island, which cost $165 per person. It was one of the cheaper tours I could find that sees the most. We got picked up from our hotel nice and early at 7.30 and drove to Inskip Point Ferry. There were about 7 people on the bus with us so it was a nice group size. The ferry was very quick and on the way we saw some dolphins in the distance! We arrived at the 75 Mile Beach. The photo to the right perfectly shows off the drive. We were driving right along the edge of the rough water. The 4 wheel drive bus started off driving over the sand before going deeper into the forest on Fraser Island. There aren’t any roads on the island so it’s a VERY bumpy ride.
After a lot of driving we stopped at a Forest Track where we had some drinks and biscuits and a quick 5-10 minute walk through the forest. It was a really nice walk through the trees and the blue skies made it even more impressive.
We continued driving for another half hour and arrived and the beautiful Lake McKenzie. This was probably my most anticipated part of our travels, I’d seen tons of photos of it - the white sand, the crystal clear water, the blue skies etc. It was just as amazing as I thought it would be. We had about an hour to spend on the lake and we swam for the whole hour. It was amazing.
We then had lunch surrounded by very hungry Kookaburra's. They actually flew down to the table and stole food off of people’s plates! We continued our drive back along the 75 Mile Beach towards the Maheno Shipwreck.
On the way to the wreck we drove past quite a few Dingo’s! We had seen Dingo’s before in a wildlife sanctuary along the Great Ocean Road, but never seen them in the wild. They looked much more fox-like and skinnier in real life. The Dingo’s would sit right next to fishermen as though they were guard dogs.
At this point is started raining again. Luckily by the time we arrived at the shipwreck the rain had stopped and a beautiful full rainbow appeared behind the wreck.
From the Maheno Shipwreck we drove to the Pinnacle Coloured Sands, where we had a quick stop to walk around, and then drove back along the 75 Mile beach to Eli Creek and the ferry.
I’m really happy we got to see Fraser Island and we were very lucky with the weather, it was supposed to rain heavily all day! There really wouldn’t be any other way of discovering the Island than taking a tour since there aren’t any roads. I thought the tour was ok. We got to see a lot of the island, but we didn’t really experience much. The majority of the time we were on the bus. Our first stop was about 10 minutes at the forest track where we walked 5 minutes into the forest and 5 minutes back down, the second stop at Lake McKenzie was an hour, the shipwreck stop was about 10 minutes, I thought we’d go on a walk around the Pinnacle Coloured sands but it was all fenced off so you walked up to it and walked back down. At Eli Creek we had about 10 minutes again. It would have been nicer if there was a bit more exploring and really getting to walk around and seeing more.
We arrived back at Debbie’s Place at 4 in the afternoon and half an hour later Debbie dropped a few of us off at a HUGE sand dune. It was incredible and we watched the sunset from there. As we walked towards the beach we spotted a whale in the far distance.
The final day in Rainbow Beach we spent actually on Rainbow Beach. Rainbow Beach is known for it’s colourful cliffs so that’s were we decided to go. We until 15.30 before the Greyhound picked us up so we took it nice and slow. The black rocks in the photo are called Coffee Rocks and they aren’t proper rocks. They’re actually formed from the vegetation so they’re very soft.
I found it really strange that cars were allowed to drive on the beach, there was actually a speed limit!! I thought it was a bit dangerous...
Here are a few photos of the different coloured sand. It started off as a beautiful bright white sand and then changed into a bright orange colour.
We finished the day off with a beautiful rainbow over Rainbow Beach and took the bus to Hervey Bay.
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